Nicole Wallenbrock’s publication titled The Franco-Algerian War Through a Twenty-First Century Lens, argues that films about the Algerian Revolution (1954–1962) made in the twenty-first century fill in gaps in the public imagination, examining how collective memory of the war is reconstructed through the present lens of post-colonial cinema. The analysis employs a transnational approach to French and Algerian film, challenging the conventional understanding of spatial and geographical factors in shaping nationalist identity. Wallenbrock transcribes France’s and Algeria’s hazy topographic boundaries and their representations in film using the term “transcinema” in relation to Paul A. Silverstein’s notion of “transpolitics” (11-12). Ultimately, this “interstitial space” endured by memory and cinematic presence makes the audience face horrific truths and subjugates the French state’s historic amnesia of colonialism and its subsequent refusal to accept its specific legacy in Algeria (3).

This study investigates films that are less commonly researched in the fields of history and media, emphasizing the importance of flashback devices, first-hand testimony, and documentary footage, as well as pragmatic aspects that influence how a film is made and received by the public, such as information about funding sources, the national identity of performers and directors, release dates, and the political and socioeconomic factors that influence script production. Wallenbrock consistently challenges linear historical narratives in the text by examining how post-colonial film influences the ideas of post-memory, multidirectional memory, and international memory. To assist in this endeavor, she utilizes the post-structuralist notions of deterritorialization and rhizomatic formations as proposed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Michel Foucault’s concept of “heterotopia,” Réda Bensamaïa’s postcolonial theory, and David Harvey’s Marxist economic geography. The result is a fresh and persuasive viewpoint that shows how motion pictures might alleviate the burden of war on modern public consciousness, recognize the presence of violence between France and Algeria, and even create space for healing and reconciliation.

Wallenbrock begins by situating the importance of this work and the film selection in relation to two statements made in 2017 by Kamel Daoud, an Algerian author, editor, and journalist, and Emmanuel Macron, who at the time was a French presidential candidate. Daoud aims to accept the post-colonial present and move forward from a contentious past with France, while Macron’s public apology for France’s crimes in Algeria aims to seek forgiveness for the past. Both men seek to create new partnerships between their two countries. Wallenbrock’s analysis provides a critical response to the oversimplified comprehension of history in which she characterizes the two men as trapped within a narrow prism of the past. The cinematic discourse disrupts Daoud’s and Macron’s reductive unification of France and Algeria while confronting, through film, the historical efforts of both countries united to bring the truth of the war to public view. The result is a selection of films that upend previous nationalist discourses into a more truthful narration in cinema of unexpected partnerships between the two regions.

Although the chapters are not in chronological order, the author effectively weaves subjects together to form a coherent and intricate constellation of chapters that reference and speak to one another. The author explores the depiction of the Algerian War in film in chapters one and two. She examines portrayals of collaboration between individuals or groups that cross national lines in Algeria and France, whether implicit or explicit. From chapters three to five, the author expands this research by looking at films that transition from expressing war in a patriotic way to representing a more international remembrance, which he attributes to issues like immigration and environmental changes in the twenty-first century. The sixth chapter explores how postwar Algeria is represented in twentieth- and twenty-first-century films. It highlights the significance of physical sites that retain memories of sadness and pain, as well as references to prior chapters’ stories of displacement and torture by the French Army (and its cover-up).

The first chapter of the text uses the concept of “transcinema,” which elucidates the trauma and memory of colonization that connect Algeria and France, thereby forming a shared history in both nations’ consciousnesses (11-12). The filmic manifestations of the Algerian War demonstrate the early indications of national exchange between Europe and Algeria, as evidenced by major cinematic discourses about the struggle in the twentieth century. These discussions include connections between French theorist Jean-Paul Sartre and anti-colonial filmmaker René Vautier, as well as the political French new wave, exemplified by films such as Agnes Varda’s Cléo de 5 à 7, Jean-Luc Godard’s Le Petit Soldat, and the influence of cinéma parallèle, a socialist-leaning movement against censorship of underground cinema, on other European directors.

The book’s second chapter explores the concept of transcinema through three experimental documentaries: Algérie Tours/détours (2006), China Is Still Far (2008), and Fida (2012), all of which reference films from the era of the Algerian revolution. The author asserts that the linkages between these films are not chronological but instead rhizomatic. For example, Algérie Tours/détours, which has an image of René Vautier wandering through the still-ruined Casbah, is reminiscent of Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers (1966) (46-47). Although the scene spans time, it also emphasizes the immutable landscape. The book’s third and fourth chapters focus on how these intersections in film elicit shared emotional responses from the audience. Chapter three delves into how French military-authorized torture films evoke feelings of remorse and humiliation. Meanwhile, chapter four investigates the staggering emotional impact of Algerians’ involuntary deterritorialization in jails and camps, resulting in communal despair and anguish.

Chapter five examines how films show a heterogeneous community grappling with various perspectives on French colonialism (112). Wallenbrock sheds light on the impact of increased public awareness of the Algerian Revolution in 2008 on the release of the diptych films Mesrine Part 1: L’Instinct de Mort and Part II: L’Ennemi Public No. 1 (Jean-Paul Richet), which delve into the life of Jacques Mesrine, a notorious French criminal, and dissect how the two films and the gangster genre provide a renewed perspective on Algeria’s terrible past under French colonialism.

The final six chapters illustrate the most striking conflation of both space and time, with Wallenbrock drawing parallels between Une si jeune paix (So Young a Peace, Jacques Charby, 1965) and Loubia Hamra (Bloody Beans, Narimane Mari, 2013). In Mari’s film, children play on the beach, replacing violent acts with dancing and feasting, creating a joyful utopia by the sea. This stands in stark contrast to Charby’s first feature film since Algeria’s independence, where he staged orphaned youngsters participating in military exercises, thereby enriching the memory of the war fifty years later. This chapter’s punchy imagery, which shows younger generations negotiating a postwar world fraught with memories and embodied pain, is highly instructive. The two films, set centuries apart, provide a contemporary viewpoint on the Franco-Algerian War and its incomplete narrative throughout history. Wallenbrock effectively outlines that by creating a dialogue around an open wound, they create a therapeutic process that promotes public accountability. This is an essential call to action for historians of the Algerian Revolution to examine alternate, visual approaches to the struggle.

Due to the fact that it utilizes the viewpoint of modern cinema in order to reevaluate the memory and comprehension of the Algerian Revolution, Wallenbrock’s thesis has substantial consequences for academic research on the Algerian Revolution. The elements of anguish, sadness, and loss that are involved with the war are amplified by her examination of the lasting impact that it has had on film. With that said, it is also possible that the use of numerous theoretical frameworks and films may unintentionally prevent readers who are unfamiliar with the facts of the conflict from completely comprehending the text’s complicated inquiries. Therefore, The Franco-Algerian War through a Twenty-First Century Lens will be of particular interest to film historians who are looking for a more profound comprehension of the cinematic discourse of the Algerian Revolution beyond its historical context. Additionally, those in fields such as continental philosophy or francophone studies who are fascinated by the ways in which relations between France and Algeria are portrayed in the media and public imagination will find this book to be of particular interest.